Professor Risteárd Mulcahy was head of the cardiology department and the heart disease research unit at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. He is a past president of the Irish Medical Association and was one of the founders of the Irish Heart Association. He has a strong political background in the Irish Health Service and has devoted much of his professional life to researching the causes of coronary heart disease and active in the promotion of preventing heart disease through healthy eating, regular aerobic exercise and the control of cigarette smoking. Risteárd also practices what he preaches: he works two days a week, remains a keen walker who fits in 18 holes of golf two or three times a week going on to run his first marathon at the age of sixty-one.